Posted in December 2009 …

Dec 31 2009
Leave a comment
Freer-Sackler, Smithsonian American Art Museum, National Portrait Gallery, National Gallery of Art, National Zoo

DC Museums and Social Media: A New Year’s Resolution

While several friends have vowed to curb their Internet/Twitter/iPhone habits in 2010 to reclaim a modicum of face time with friends and family, I’m thinking I need to be more electronically plugged in to DC’s arts and culture scene. A great place to start: DCist’s handy round-up of local museums’ podcasts, blogs and Twitter feeds.

I’m already a Facebook fan of the Freer-Sackler Gallery and the National Gallery of Art, but in truth I’m still getting a lot of my museum news through (increasingly old school) e-newsletters. Not to say that e-newsletters don’t serve a purpose: The Freer-Sackler sent me a year-end fundraising plea just this afternoon, and I succumbed, much as I do after a week of listening to public radio pledge drive banter.

As for blogs, I often skim the Smithsonian American Art Museum and the National Portrait Gallery blogs, which include cool stuff like this time lapse video of shadows moving across the Kogod Courtyard, one of my favorite public spaces in Washington.

The Smithsonian’s Around the Mall blog is also worth checking out, for exhibit updates and quirky behind-the-scenes stories like this post on a couple who recently got engaged at the National Museum of Natural History (in the museum’s forensic lab? really?)

For sheer numbers of followers, however, the reigning champ on the DC museum circuit has got to be the National Zoo’s Pandacam, trained on our beloved Tai Shan, who will soon depart for China. Yes, he’s chomping bamboo as I type. Just try not to click on that link.

Photo by tklancer via Flickr.

Tagged , , , ,
Dec 26 2009
1 Comment
National Portrait Gallery, Uncategorized

Voices from the Heartland


It’s a misty Boxing Day in Washington, so I thought I’d catch Up in the Air, a movie I’ve been wanting to see for months now on the strength of great reviews, and, yes, the ever-swelling star power of George Clooney. Clooney is great, as usual, but the film’s most affecting scenes don’t center around the leading man; they’re the brief dialogues with recently laid-off, real people who ponder how they’ll tell the spouse and kids and start anew.

It’s the voice of America at a particularly sorry moment in time.

At the National Portrait Gallery right now, you’ll find a nice bookend to Up in the Air, in the voices of the residents of Maquoketa, Iowa. Part of the gallery’s Portraiture Now: Communities exhibit, the Maquoketa project is the brainchild of artist Rose Frantzen, who hung out a shingle on the town’s Main Street and successfully recruited 180 fellow Iowans to sit for portraits. She then enlisted her musically-minded brother to record brief interviews with each subject and layer their voices in a kind of documentary symphony, which floats over the gallery space.

It’s tempting to match the portraits with the voices, which expound on the joys of small-town life, the challenges of raising kids, the impact of Walmart’s arrival in town, but the show’s effect is amplified if you step back and consider the people of Maquoketa in their entirety. Maybe I was still mulling Clooney’s character, whose compulsive travel precludes any sustainable human connection, but I found it more interesting to guess how each of the voices relates to one another: friends, family, neighbors, strangers?

Portraiture Now: Communities runs through July 5, 2010.

Image credit: Rose Frantzen / Collection of the artist, Maquoketa, IA

Tagged , ,
Dec 19 2009
Leave a comment
US Holocaust Memorial Museum

Propaganda Masters

The Nazi party was nothing if not thorough. Its decades-in-the-making propaganda apparatus, designed to win votes, promote the Aryan state, exclude and eliminate Jews, and win a war, reached every facet of life in Germany, down to the tiniest Hitler youth.

The US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s special exhibit, State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda breaks apart the Nazi strategy piece-by-piece and shows how devastatingly effective it all was. A nifty touch screen of a map of Berlin takes you to state broadcasters, newspaper publishers and theatre venues, all spewing out the party line in tandem. Posters promise, “You too belong to the Fuhrer;” community chalkboards announce Nazi youth meetings; and–this really got me–children’s board games reward players for deporting Jews. No medium went unexplored.

Not exactly a cheery exhibit for the holiday season, but an important one given how many propaganda ministries still practice the trade. At the close of the show, there’s a too-brief section on the legacy of Nazi propaganda, with a mention of state radio’s role in the Rwandan genocide.

One wonders what the Internet age will bring.

State of Deception: The Power of Nazi Propaganda runs through December 2011.

Image: Kunstbibliothek Berlin/BPK, Berlin/Art Resource, New York

Tagged ,
Dec 12 2009
Leave a comment
Freer-Sackler, Textile Museum, National Geographic, National Gallery of Art

DC’s Museums: Year in Review

Amid the feel-good vibe of Inauguration Weekend 2009 — yes, it seems like a long time ago — I stopped by the National Gallery of Art and spent an hour studying Robert Frank’s 1950s photographic series, “The Americans.” The gallery’s timing couldn’t have been better. As our first black President swept into town, here was a silent reminder, in the plaintive eyes of a man seated in the back of a New Orleans trolley car, of how far we’d come.

“The Americans” kicked off a stellar year for DC’s museums, which consistently offered visually rich, thought-provoking and, in the case of the Terracotta Warriors, once-in-a-lifetime exhibits.

Here, the five that stayed with me:

1. Looking In: Robert Frank’s The Americans, National Gallery of Art. A stunning photographic portrait of 1950′s America, this show forced me to look at my own country from the perspective of a foreigner, interpreting race, class, politics and the American landscape in a whole new light. If you move fast, you can still catch it at New York’s Metropolitan Museum, through January 3, 2010. Highly recommended.

2. Terracotta Warriors: Guardians of China’s First Emperor, National Geographic. I can’t gush enough about them. Unless you’re planning a trip to China, you need to see them while they’re here. The exhibit runs through March 31, 2010.

3. Gardens and Cosmos: The Royal Paintings of Jodhpur, Freer-Sackler Gallery. This show was pure, fantastical fun, depicting the royal courts of Rajasthan through lush watercolors in greens, magentas and blues. Ashrams set in verdant hills, palaces alive with dancing girls, elephants frolicking in the monsoon rains: It made me want to be a Maharajah.

4. The Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection: Selected Works, National Gallery of Art. A tour through this collection is equivalent to a one-semester course on post-war American painting. My favorites? The black-on-black Rothko and Jasper Johns’ all-white U.S. map. Cool. On view through May 2, 2010.

5. Timbuktu to Tibet: Rugs and Textiles of the Hajji Babas, Textile Museum. Who knew there was a 75-year-old society of rug collectors called the Hajji Baba Club? I wanted to take their soumaks, kilims and bokharas home, but I’ll admit the Tibetan tiger rugs stole the show.

Tagged , , ,
Dec 11 2009
Leave a comment
National Geographic

Terracotta Warriors: Charmed Again

There’s something about the Terracotta Warriors. I first saw them two years ago when I lived in Taiwan, and was surprised to find each figure individually sculpted, each suit of armor and hairstyle distinct from the next. They weren’t at all the monolithic group I’d expected from photos of the excavation pits near Xi’an, China. I couldn’t read any of the exhibit text at the time (it was in Chinese, of course) but no matter: I was smitten.

I got a second chance to see the warriors last night, at DC’s National Geographic headquarters, and they were just as mesmerizing. The exhibit includes a number of artifacts discovered at the excavation site– bronze cranes, jade pendants, decorated bricks–and details the warriors’ unexpected discovery by a group of unwitting Chinese farmers in 1974. It’s a great backstory, but the show’s kick-in-the-gut moment comes at the very end, in a low-lit room where you’ll see ten of the warriors, standing, kneeling, poised for battle.

Yes, they were meant to be fearsome, to protect a Chinese emperor from the demons of the afterlife. But their faces are just too likeable: a sloping cheekbone, a curled mustache, a pair of curious eyes that reach across millennia. Really. It’s enough to make you book the next flight to Xi’an.

Terracotta Warriors: Guardians of China’s First Emperor runs through March 31, 2010.

Photo by smmorgan photos via Flickr (Creative Commons).

Tagged ,
Dec 03 2009
Leave a comment
Corcoran Gallery of Art, National Building Museum, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Textile Museum

Top Five for Holiday Shopping

Yes, it’s that time of year again. I’ve long favored D.C.’s museum gift shops for unique holiday gifts. Here, my top five, with their strong suits. Check ‘em out.

1. National Building Museum: children’s toys and games, books on art and architecture
2. Smithsonian American Art Museum: silver jewelry, funky bags
3. Corcoran Gallery of Art: Christmas cards and wrapping paper, notecards, jewelry
4. National Museum of African Art: batik bags and baskets, jewelry, Christmas ornaments made by African artisans
5. Textile Museum: scarves, rugs, bags, jewelry

Tagged ,
Follow

Get every new post delivered to your Inbox.